Textbook Enigmatic
by Cantica10
Summary: When the TARDIS's shields are breached mid-flight, not even the Doctor could have expected who was responsible.
1. Chapter 1

I've been sitting on this idea for a while and wrote it out thinking it would be for my enjoyment only… but what the heck, I'll see if anybody else gets a kick out of it. I really liked when the Doctor said, "You look Time Lord. We came first." That got me to thinking if Time Lords looked like anything, and then this idea started, and now here you are, reading this poorly explained author's note and hopefully continuing to read the story that sprung into being.

Summary: When the TARDIS's shields are breached mid-flight, not even the Doctor could have expected who was responsible.

* * *

"Textbook Enigmatic"

It was a perfectly ordinary day, as far as days travelling in time and space went. The Doctor had spent it staving off boredom by setting the TARDIS's controls to random and seeing where the old girl took him with every stop. By early afternoon he had made four stops and only one had been remotely dangerous – he'd landed in the middle of a war on the planet Pugna and very nearly taken an arrow to the shoulder in the four seconds he'd spent outside the TARDIS on the battling world. That war would destroy the planet eventually and was a fixed point in time, unfortunately, or he would have tried something to stop it.

Wishing for an adventure that required much thought and a considerable amount of running, the Doctor pulled upon the lever that started the TARDIS once more and held on to a bar attached to the console as it jerked about, spinning through the time vortex to their next destination.

It was then that his spaceship lurched in the most alarming of manners, and the unsuspecting Doctor was thrown off balance and fell over, still clutching onto the stabilization bar. At once, the console room began flashing between the usual bright, yellowish light it was illuminated by and an urgent scarlet color, and an alarm fashioned off of World War II air raid sirens began to howl, making the Doctor grimace from both the noise and concern for his TARDIS. "That can't be good," he muttered under his breath, clambering to his feet with difficulty, as the ship was jerking violently about.

Every monitor he had was flashing the words "Shields breached" in angry red letters, and The Doctor stared at the words in utter shock, his mouth hanging slightly open as different possibilities ran through his mind. The last time the shields had been breached, he'd met his past self, but that hadn't been nearly a violent as breach as this. The sirens hadn't come on the last time. Nor had they come on the time before, when Jack had clung to the side of the TARDIS and the ship had gone to the end of the universe in an attempt to shake him off. Which meant that whatever was attacking his ship was big, and extremely powerful. "Very not good," he said, his concern growing, as he twisted several knobs that would hopefully increase the strength of the shields and identify what it was that was assaulting the TARDIS.

He was appalled to find that whatever it was wasn't trying to destroy the ship. In fact, there were no outside forces working against the TARDIS at all. And yet, the sirens continued to screech, dulling the Doctor's sense of hearing and perplexing him thoroughly. He knew it wasn't a mistake, as there had definitely been something that caused his TARDIS to lurch about wildly the way it was, but he couldn't identify the source of the problem.

Frustrated beyond thought, the Doctor yanked down on a lever and the ship stopped, suspended unmoving in the time vortex. At once, the sirens died and the lights ceased flickering, and the Doctor stepped away from the console and ran a hand through his hair, ruffling it into unimaginable dishevelment, as he looked around in bewilderment. "What in the world…?"

He looked back towards his monitor, hoping for answers, and for once he found them. A map of the TARDIS had been pulled up and there were two orange lights flickering in two separate places: the life forms on the ship. There was one glowing in the console room representing himself. What concerned him was the second light, flickering in the library. "Oh, dear."

Without hesitation, he sprinted for the library, reaching into the inside of his coat pocket for the sonic screwdriver by way of arming himself. What was going on?! What was there in the universe so powerful it could burst through the TARDIS's shields and enter the ship itself without using the front doors, the only way in or out? Fleetingly, he thought of the daleks, but the feeling he usually got around those metal monstrosities wasn't attached to this situation. The feeling he got here was… not dread, but a slight knot in his stomach as well as an overwhelming curiosity to know exactly what it was he was facing.

The library door was a few sharp turns down the ship's intricate network of hallways, and the first obvious difference in the room once he burst inside was that the books were all over the floor. Of course, the TARDIS had been more concerned with stabilizing and strengthening the defense systems rather than manipulating the gravity fields in various rooms. Oh, goodness, the room with the swimming pool was probably doused. And he didn't want to imagine the state of his bedroom… all those glass trinkets...

The library was utterly silent. He had never seen it in such a disastrous state before. Books strewn across the floor in fabulous chaos, some pages torn or ripped having been caught beneath other books as they had flown around the room. Piles rested at the base of some shelves, entirely emptied in the midst of the TARDIS's lurching. The only sound echoing off the walls and in the empty bookcases as he proceeded with extreme caution into the room, screwdriver held at an arm's length in front of him, was that of his own footsteps.

He stopped in the center of the room, next to the pair of overturned armchairs usually set up near the wall by a fireplace. He turned around slowly, looking in every shadow and every corner for something, anything… and saw nothing.

But then he heard it. A soft sound, like a whimper, coming from his left where there was a mountain of books and a toppled bookshelf. The Doctor whirled around, staring at the pile. "Hello?" He took a few steps towards the mound of books. "Is someone there?"

He heard a gasp and a several very ragged and panicked breaths, then another whimper.

The Doctor lowered his screwdriver slowly as he approached, the curiosity growing with every step as well as a sense of concern. Whatever it was, whatever the powerful being that had gotten onto his TARDIS was, it was in a terrible amount of pain. And something new was no fun to him if it died.

"Hello?" he repeated as he came to stop in front of the pile of books. He lowered his eyes and sucked in a harsh breath. There was something there, all right. From beneath the overturned bookshelf there was a pale hand reaching out, caked in blood and trembling. At first the nails looked merely blood-soaked as well, but on second glance he could see that they were brown. "Oh, no."

Without thinking about the possible danger or even taking a moment to consider that he might be hurling himself into some sort of trap, the Doctor gripped the edge of the bookshelf and lifted it, a feat that took tremendous effort and resulted in only a few inches of movement, revealing more of an arm draped in torn and tattered blue… it looked like silk, but the molecular structure wasn't quite right for silk. It was a female hand, he was almost sure of that.

A few more heaves and the bookshelf had been moved away entirely, and the Doctor got his first good look at the intruder.

A girl covered in blood, a child who couldn't have been more than seventeen or eighteen, with deep chocolate colored hair and half-open eyes, cuts and scrapes covering every inch of her skin he could see. Her chest rose and fell too quickly, as though every breath was a desperate fight to take air into her lungs. Her blue dress was torn almost beyond recognition, barely scraps of it left. Her left arm was broken; that was only too easy to see, and running the screwdriver over her body once told him that wasn't the only thing; she had three broken ribs on top of that.

The scan also revealed the most perplexing thing about the strange girl who had apparently materialized in the library on his ship.

She wasn't human.

But the screwdriver didn't have any information on what she might be. Species unknown, it told him. She looked human in every aspect, but his device didn't recognize her as such. So what was she?

The girl groaned and opened her eyes the rest of the way, their color a shocking violet, and awareness slowly took root in her expression. The Doctor watched in shock as, when her eyes locked onto his, her hair transformed in color, taking on black streaks within the brown, and then her nails changed color as well, going black. She whimpered and tried to instinctually recoil, but at once she gasped in pain and tears fell out of her eyes, and she fell back onto the books again with a cry.

Comforts poured from the Doctor's lips at once, never able to bear seeing another creature in such pain. "It's all right. It's going to be fine. I'm the Doctor; I'm going to help you."

"Safe," the girl croaked desperately. "Is it safe here?"

"No safer place," the Doctor assured her, and watched in astonishment as several of the girl's black strands of hair turned as violet as her eyes, though not all the black faded away. Her nails turned back to brown.

"Hurts," the girl whispered. The Doctor could see the awareness fading from her eyes. She was falling back into unconsciousness. "Hurts everywhere."

"I know. I already said, I'm a doctor – well, sort of – and I'm going to help you, all right? It's all going to be all right."

"And safe," the girl sighed, her eyes closing and her mouth going slack. She had passed out, either from pain or blood loss, and if she didn't get medical attention soon, her life would be in serious danger.

Getting her to the med bay without sending her into shock was no small feat, especially since he wasn't certain that her physiology was the same as a human's and her injuries were rather extensive. After a few minutes, though, the girl was laid out upon the exam table in the sterile white room and the Doctor was jamming his glasses up the bridge of his nose and silently pleading for her forgiveness as he cut what little remained of her blue dress away from her broken body and wiped dried blood off her skin to more easily reveal her wounds. He started running more extensive scans on her with 60th century equipment in hopes to identify her species and rummaging through cupboards in search of topical antibiotics and anesthetic, trying to remember what he had done with his 37th century biological reconstruction wand. What he wouldn't give for some nanogenes, which could heal her instantly without pain or scarring, but he had never managed to get his hands on any of those…

A few minutes more and he had everything he needed, seated at the girl's bedside and injecting the only anesthetic stronger than morphine that he had into her broken arm and into her side in hopes to prevent her from feeling the incredible pain that would accompany healing her bones. Even he grimaced and cringed running the wand over her arm and ribcage and heard the bones cracking within as they shifted back into their correct positions. She cried out in her sleep, but even that wasn't enough to start her back into consciousness. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," the Doctor apologized on reflex, though he knew she could not hear him.

The machines began spitting back results, and the Doctor snatched them up eagerly only to find that the results in relation to her species were inconclusive. He ran a hand through his hair in frustration and tossed the results aside as he began screwing the cap off a tube of topical anesthetic. "What are you?" he asked the unconscious girl under his breath, beginning the process of dousing various cotton balls with the medicine and applying it to the girl's endless injuries. Some of them had been caused by being crushed by the bookshelf, but not all, though it was impossible to identify the source of all the others. She looked almost as bad as one of the warriors he had seen earlier on Pugna, coming out of battles scarred and bloody.

He yanked the cap off a tube of cellular regeneration salve and covered her wounds in it, watching in satisfaction as the skin crept close, leaving only faint pink lines to suggest there had ever been any injuries at all.

"There," he sighed, draping a white blanket over her and slouching back in his chair, vigorously rubbing his forehead and temples with his fingertips to stave off the headache he could feel coming on. This girl had broken through the TARDIS's shields. She had come to him injured and in pain. There had never been any threat… but he still had to wonder what made her so powerful that she had quite literally materialized on his ship as he spun through the time vortex.

He watched her almost expectantly, hoping for the strange phenomena of her hair and nails changing color to occur again, but both remained as they were; her hair was still brown and spilling over the side of the table, streaks of black and violet interrupting the solid color. Her nails remained brown, though he did notice it was a much lighter shade.

Biting the inside of his cheek, the Doctor picked up the scan results again and scrutinized them more closely. Her physiology was very similar to a human's, with only a few discrepancies: her brain capacity was much more impressive, and she seemed to be slightly stronger than a human of her size, and…

The Doctor froze. This was impossible; completely impossible. "No," he breathed, overwhelmed by an intense hope as he knelt forward rapidly, unable to sit still upon the incredible discovery. Almost in ecstasy, he tore his stethoscope from his pocket and stuck the prongs in his ears, pressing the circular end against the girl's chest on the left side, listening to her heartbeat. It was steady, which was some comfort.

Holding his breath, the Doctor moved the end of the stethoscope to the right side.

_Bum pum. Bum pum. Bum pum. Bum pum_.

Steady on the other side. An entirely different heartbeat from the first.

Two hearts.

"Please, oh please," he muttered, pulling the scanner back to her again, looking specifically this time. The few minutes it took to get a reading was far too long for him, and he fidgeted and fisted restless hands in his hair, half-mad by the time the machine spat more results out to him. And his hearts sunk. _Not of Gallifreyan Origin_.

Not Time Lord. Two hearts and not Time Lord.

The Doctor leaned back in his chair again and sighed heavily before hunching over and burying his face in his hands, the crushing blow to his hope sitting like a pain in his chest. "Damn it," he muttered, curling one hand into a fist, his fingernails digging into his palm as he gazed at the girl. "Well, aren't you an enigma?" he asked in frustration. "Textbook enigmatic."

So close… so close. All he wanted was one other Time Lord, one who wasn't crazy or murderous or power-hungry… just one other who knew the pain he felt.

But as he looked at this girl, this strange child with hair and nails that changed colors, this girl powerful enough to break through his TARDIS's defenses and land in the middle of his library, this girl who, utterly broken and afraid had begged only for safety… he wasn't entirely sure that she didn't feel as he felt too.

Alone in the universe. The last of his kind. There was a sorrow that came with that knowledge, a sorrow he could feel coming from her. He didn't know what she was or who. He had no idea where she'd come from or how she'd gotten so broken, but there was one thing he did know. She needed help.

And, well, he had never been able to resist a cry for help.

* * *

Review if you want this continued. ;) See you next time, my darlings!


	2. Chapter 2

Thank you for continuing on to Chapter Two. It means a lot to me. =3 And your wonderful reviews! They always make my day.

Disclaimer: I didn't include this last chapter, but I should hope it's painfully obvious that I do not own Doctor Who.

Allon-sy!

* * *

Chapter Two: Riddle

The girl came to several hours later, her eyes flying open and darting wildly about. The violet in her hair vanished and the brown was replaced by a vibrant orange while the black remained, adorning her head with the colors of the Earth holiday of Halloween. She shot up into a sitting position and gasped as the blanket covering her fell to her waist, and as her face turned bright red a lock of her hair and her nails turned a shocking pink, clashing magnificently with the orange. She snatched at the blanket and clutched it close to her chest, covering herself and looking around the room with wild eyes.

"It's all right; you're safe," the Doctor assured her quickly, rushing to the bed he'd moved her to and pushing her back to lie down. "Don't exert yourself. Your body experienced incredible damage and you're still recovering."

Her face screwed up in confusion and concentration, and it took a moment for him to realize she was struggling to swallow. "Water," she croaked through a parched throat.

The Doctor couldn't help but think that the first words out of her mouth could have been a bit more climactic as he reached for the glass of water he'd had the foresight to set on the table near the bed. He went about the task of awkwardly helping the girl to raise herself up in a much gentler manner and pressing the tip of the glass to her lips, and it seemed she couldn't quite remember _how_ to swallow, as the water dribbled past the corners of her lips and in curving paths to fall from her chin. After a few seconds she seemed to remember how drinking worked and took the glass in both hands, gulping thirstily at the contents until it was empty. Several locks of her hair turned violet once more. The Doctor tugged the glass from her grasp, which was surprisingly firm, and she let her hands fall to her sides as she lay down again. "Thank you," she said hoarsely. "Where… where am I?"

"It's the med bay of my spaceship," The Doctor informed her, going to the sink and filling the glass again. "Like I said, you were pretty beat up. I fixed your broken bones and injuries, but there wasn't a whole lot I could do about the bruising, I'm afraid."

She looked down at her arms, which were decorated with blue and purple patches of abused skin. Almost curiously, she pressed down on one and winced. A strip of her orange hair changed to brown. "Ow."

She acted as though she'd never had a bruise before. The Doctor seated himself at her bedside again and asked, "All technicalities aside, how did you get onto my TARDIS?"

She stared at him blankly.

"Time and Relative Dimension in Space," he elaborated, figuring her confusion was over the unfamiliar word.

But she shook her head, her puzzled expression remaining prominently in her features. "I don't know… I can't remember," she mumbled, another lock of her hair going pink. The Doctor stared in amazement at her hair. Orange, black, pink, and purple all at once. He took a quick glance at her nails, which had gone orange. He guessed the colors signified the emotions she was feeling at the moment, but which emotions the colors represented were much harder to ascertain.

"All right… breaking through the shields would have taken an enormous amount of energy; it's not surprising you're experiencing some memory loss," the Doctor said logically, though the answers he so desperately wanted were slipping through his fingers. "What's your name?"

She thought very hard for several moments before she looked at him with an expression of defeat and admitted feebly, "I don't know."

The Doctor sighed, trying very hard to hide his frustration. "And I don't suppose you remember where you're from?"

She shook her head, and judging by the expression on her face, he could tell he wasn't doing a very good job at keeping his aggravation with the lack of answers in check. A strip of her hair turned a deep, mournful blue. "I'm sorry," she apologized, biting her bottom lip.

Immediately, the Doctor felt guilt knot in his stomach. "No, don't do that," he said, indicating his own bottom lip, and she ceased nibbling on hers. "It's not your fault," he told her, helping her to sit up again and pressing the glass of water into her hands.

She gulped at the water much like the first glass, and the Doctor considered telling her to slow down before deciding such a command wouldn't do her much good anyway, as she was obviously too parched to listen rationally to anything having to do with water.

"Well, then, first things first," the Doctor said, leaning back in his chair as he watched the girl, whose hair was losing its pink, the color fading into a shimmering white. "Since you can't remember your name, we're going to have to figure out what we should call you."

She looked at the Doctor in astonishment. "Call me… you mean… you want me to stay here?" she asked very slowly, like she was struggling to find the proper words. Her brain must have been addled by her adventure through the TARDIS's shields. Give her a couple of days and her brain function should return mostly to normal, though he couldn't say the same for her memory loss…

"Unless you have someplace else to be," the Doctor shrugged, taking the empty glass from her again. "You can stay here and recover from both physical injuries and mental strain while we figure out who you are and where you've come from."

"Stay here," the girl repeated, and for the first time since he'd seen her, the hint of a smile tugged at the corners of her lips. "Yes… thank you. I'd like that." More violet streaked in her hair, and then a color the Doctor hadn't seen her wear yet – a bright yellow, like sunshine.

He got distracted. "Your hair…"

Her hands went to it involuntarily. "Is there something the matter with it? You didn't have to cut it off, did you?!"

Typical. Women and their hair. He'd travelled with enough female companions to know that all women who had hair were very sensitive about it. "No, not that. It changes colors."

"Of course. Doesn't yours?" But then she stopped, staring intently at him. "But… no. It's been brown this whole time. And you obviously aren't in pain."

Finally! Progress! The Doctor leaned forward, as though getting closer to the girl would elicit more information. "So, brown means pain."

"Yeah. Everyone knows that."

"And who's everyone?"

The girl paused. "I don't know. It just… felt like the right thing to say."

"Automatic response. That's good. Reflexes are all still there, then. Wonder what else got retained in that head of yours. Anyway, names! We need a name for you. Something that suits you. Now—" he stood up and went to the sink, filling up the glass for the third time. Sitting back down and handing it to her, he said more quietly. "What should we call you?"

The girl stared at him blankly. "What are you looking at me for? How should I know? I'm the one who can't remember!"

"Fair enough," the Doctor sighed, biting the inside of his cheek and tugging at his earlobe in thought. "Drink your water. Now! Names… names… Tell you what, I'll start listing and you stop me when you hear something you like. Let's see… Abigail. Anita. Beatrice. Christine. Eloise. Helena. Julianne. Josie. Laura. Nancy. Olivia… this is harder than I thought it would be, actually. Any of those to your liking?"

She shook her head, still in the middle of a sip of water.

"But those are all very ordinary names; wouldn't suit you, oh no… you need something unique. Something exciting… something different. You… you came from nowhere, from the stars themselves… from the great beyond. A mystery… now…" he stared very intently at the girl. "What is a good name for a mystery?"

"A different word for mystery?" the girl suggested blankly. "And while we're on the subject, what's your name? You said you were a… doctor. Doctor who?"

"No name. Just the Doctor. But you need a name. Oh, yes, you impossible thing…" The Doctor lost his train of thought a bit just staring at her and wondering. "I can't figure it out. I can't figure _you_ out. You're just this big nameless enigma… a riddle with no answer… and I don't know—"

"Wait. I liked that."

"Sorry, what?" He asked, snapping out of his thoughts.

"That word you said. Just now. Rig… something. I liked it," she told him, grasping at the echoes of what he'd said repeating in her head, which were fading too quickly for her to latch onto the word she had liked.

"Riddle?" the Doctor supplied, baffled.

More streaks of yellow appeared in the girl's hair. "Yes, that one. Can that be my name? It's got a nice ring to it. Riddle."

This girl would be the end of him. She was driving him half-mad already with curiosity, and now she was starting to reveal all those odd little quirks people carried about with them. "Well, that's not really a name, but… in this situation I suppose it's very appropriate. All right! Riddle it is," he grinned. "Nice to meet you, Riddle. I'm the Doctor."

And her hair went entirely yellow, just like that. "The pleasure's all mine," she beamed at him. But when he offered his hand to her, she stared in confusion at it and locks of her hair returned to orange. "What are you doing?"

"Offering you my hand. You put yours in it, and we shake."

She looked at him skeptically. "I don't think I'm in the proper physical state to… shake."

The Doctor couldn't suppress a chuckle. Definitely not from Earth, this girl. "No, you don't shake your whole body. You just sort of… lift your arm up a bit and then bring it back down a few times. It's called a handshake."

The girl stared at his hand a few more moments before she extended hers and he gripped it. She allowed him to direct their arms in the motions a handshake required before pulling her arm back. The Doctor smiled at her expression of thought. "How was that?"

"Strange," she decided after seeking the right word for a moment. "But… not bad."

"No, not bad at all," the Doctor said. This child was very entertaining. "Now, I'd say you're right enough to get up and walk about a bit. And I'm sure the med bay will get really boring real quick. Why don't we have the TARDIS whip you up a proper bedroom, yeah? And after that, we can try out a few more questions that should elicit automatic responses in the kitchen. I don't know about you, but I am starving."

The newly christened Riddle was very satisfied with her new bedroom, her hair going yellow with violet streaks when they TARDIS led her and the Doctor to a room previously empty. It had been occupied with a bed and a dresser and painted in colors as vibrant and numerous as those her hair came in. She was perfectly content to disappear into the closet for several minutes and discard the blanket she'd been wrapped in for a pair of jeans (which she had never seen before but was delighted about nonetheless) and a green sweatshirt. The Doctor wasn't sure if she was wearing an actual t-shirt beneath that or not, but he supposed he'd have to take her one social convention at a time.

She acted like she'd never seen food before either, thrilled by the simple ham sandwich given to her and even more enticed by the banana, which the Doctor found highly amusing. "So, those colors," the Doctor began, indicating her hair, white streaks added to the colorful array since she'd been given food. "Brown means pain. What about… black?"

"Fear," she replied at once. "Though it can be interpreted as worry, too. Red is anger, green is hope, blue is sorrow…" she paused for a moment, trying to gather her thoughts. It was difficult to think. It gave her a headache. "Yellow is joy… purple is… gratitude…" She grimaced as her head throbbed.

"You all right?" The Doctor asked in concern, watching brown appear in her hair.

"My brain hurts," she mumbled, taking another bite of banana in order to avoid talking for a few moments.

"Oh, yeah… sorry about that; forgot to warn you. You'll probably have headaches a couple of days. Breaking through the TARDIS's shields messed with your head a bit, your memory in particular." Still, as a precaution he stood and leaned across the table, pulling an ophthalmoscope from his pocket (he'd loaded his pockets during his stay in the med bay, not sure what he might need with this girl) and directing her face towards him. "Let me see?"

She sat rigidly still, her body tensing to feel his fingers on her chin, holding her head steady. He was dismayed to see a lock of her hair go black, and he checked for any abnormalities as quickly as he could before retreating and reseating himself. "Just a headache. Nothing's wrong. You're fine," he assured her, watching with some relief as the black in her hair returned to white. "You were saying about the colors?"

"Oh… orange is… confusion. White is peace or contentment, gray is loneliness, and pink is embarrassment. I think that's all of them."

"But that's brilliant!" the Doctor exclaimed. "A trick like that, it would have to make a person completely honest. Which gives us a clue. A completely honest race… hm. Never heard of one like that. Every species has their secrets."

"I have a secret. My head's keeping everything away from me."

The Doctor couldn't repress a chuckle. "That's not quite the same. Now, I'm going to ask you a few questions. Don't think about the answer. Just blurt out the first thing that pops into your mind. What's your name?"

"Riddle." She froze and looked rather mortified. "Wait… that's wrong, isn't it? That's the name you gave me."

"It's fine. You just haven't reached it yet. How many suns?"

"Two." That was good. He could work with two suns. That eliminated a vast number of planets to search through. He couldn't help but think that Gallifrey had two suns. Maybe… just maybe there was still a chance…

"What color is the sky?"

"Purple."

The Doctor let out a long, slow breath. That had been his last hope. If she had only said orange... he could have believed the machines had made some sort of error, that she was Time Lord after all… but her skies were purple.

He gathered his thoughts, picking at a few crumbs dangling off the crusts of his own sandwich. "Where—?"

"Stop," Riddle interrupted him suddenly, and he stopped mid-question. He looked up at her and was at once appalled to see that much of her hair had gone brown, and she was holding her head in her hands. "It hurts too much."

He could have kicked himself. "I'm sorry," he apologized at once, dropping his sandwich and standing up. He guided Riddle to put hers down and get to her feet and steered her out of the kitchen. "You need sleep. It's the best thing for your recovery."

"I'm not tired."

"Doesn't matter. At the very least you need to lie down and do nothing, think of nothing. Ask the TARDIS to play some music if that helps. Oh, and keep the lights off." He was going off what Rose had done that time she had gotten a migraine, but a headache resulting from a breach in a very powerful spaceship's defense mechanisms probably warranted similar treatment.

Riddle sighed, but complied. "Fine," she mumbled as they reached her bedroom door. She had no idea what time it was, but bidding the Doctor goodnight seemed an appropriate sentiment.

"Goodnight, Riddle." He watched her open the door. Just before she slipped inside and shut it behind her, he added, "Call me if you need something, all right?"

"Yes… thank you." She smiled and shut the door.

The Doctor, unsure of what to do next, reverted to his usual ways; tinkering with devices in the console room. He was working on the zigzag plotter, which had never worked quite right and he hoped to make fully functional. It was a complicated bit of wiring he had to work with, and as he dug up the control panel and began sonicking various bits, his thoughts returned continuously to the girl in the bedroom down the hall with two hearts who wasn't Time Lord. What was she, then?

After a few hours he was still at a loss, though he had admittedly improved the plotter's functionality, and he jolted when he heard the sound coming from down the hall.

The sound that was very similar to screaming.

No… that _was_ the sound of screaming.

"Riddle?!" The wires and panels were cast aside instantly, the Doctor racing down the hall as fast as his legs could carry him almost immediately as the screaming continued. "Riddle?!"

He burst through her bedroom door without much thought to find her tossing fitfully about in her sleep beneath her covers, her hair entirely jet-black. Whimpers and moans slipped past her lips as she suffered a nightmare, struggling against an enemy that did not exist on the physical plane. "Riddle!" the Doctor exclaimed, going to the girl's bedside, cringing when she screamed again and started sobbing in her sleep.

He knew that waking her up mid-nightmare when he was little more than a stranger to her wasn't his best plan of action, but it was the only one he had and he simply couldn't bear to let her fight against her unseen enemies when she was already physically and mentally exhausted as it was. Avoiding her flailing limbs, he pressed a hand against her shoulder and lightly tried to shake her awake. "Riddle."

Her body gave a great jolt and she snapped into alertness, bolting up and scrambling backwards into the headboard and nearly off the bed, breathing in short gasps and looking around the room with wild eyes shining with tears.

"No, it's okay! It's me," the Doctor said quickly, holding his hands up in entreaty. "Just me."

She stared at him for a long moment before her gaze focused and her body relaxed just slightly. "Doctor," she whispered in relief, though she remained where she was, curled up at the edge of her bed with her arms locked around her knees as though she was trying to imitate the fetal position. The smallest strip of her hair turned yellow, a shocking contrast to the black, and suddenly she was sobbing, hiding her face behind her knees as her body shook and various streaks of her hair went from blue to pink and back again in an endless loop. The Doctor could only assume she was feeling equally depressed by the contents of the nightmare she'd been suffering from and the humiliation of breaking down in front of him.

Oh, he hated it when people cried in front of him. It tugged at his hearts, twisting them, making his body ache to comfort them. And this girl was no exception. In fact, he felt the pull more strongly. Perhaps because she was merely a child. Perhaps because he felt a sort of kinship with her (it was so rare to meet another creature with two hearts). Perhaps because she'd been through so much, quite obviously, in the last day and a half; more than anyone should have to deal with. Whatever the reason, he found himself scooting closer to poor Riddle and wrapping an arm around her, letting her find some solace in the contact as she slowly unraveled her limbs and began to cry into his jacket rather than her knees. "It's all right. It's safe here, remember? You're all right. You're safe."

All right and safe. The only two comforts he could possibly think would do her any good.

"Fire," she cried nearly unintelligibly, and the Doctor strained to listen. She was trying to tell him what she had seen, what terrible illusions had plagued her in sleep. "Huge… buildings falling. Screaming. Bright blue lights… pain…"

Was she seeing what had happened to her?! This could be a major breakthrough! He couldn't just let this pass him by – he had to know, he had to see it! He angled himself so he could look the girl directly in the eye. With his hands on her shoulders he said seriously, "Riddle. I know this isn't something you want to do, but it could be very important. I need you to relive your nightmare with me, all right? I need you to trust me. Can you do that for me?" He was reaching towards her face already, his fingers on her temples with the tips brushing her hairline – and he found himself hurled from her mind almost immediately. Good lord, he'd never experienced that before! Nobody had ever thrust him out of their thoughts! They'd created doors to keep secrets hidden, but nobody had ever exiled him the way she had!

Riddle shook her head, tears spilling out of her eyes. "No, I don't want to. I can't…"

She chose _now_ to be difficult? Fine, then. If he had to beg, he would. Time was running out, and this was urgent! "Riddle, _please_. It could be crucial to finding out who you are."

She sniffled and thought it over before she screwed her eyes shut and nodded, flinching when the Doctor's fingertips went back to her temples.

It still took him a few moments and an impressive amount of effort to probe her thoughts and delve into her fading subconscious. He shut his eyes, trying to see what she saw. It was blurry at first, but grew sharper every second as Riddle allowed him in.

He saw a glittering purple sky, as violet as Riddle's eyes, and buildings of glass in every color he could imagine, even some he had never seen before. He saw rolling hills of blue and pink grass and trees reaching towards the heavens with leaves of gold. He saw people who looked so human draped in the same material as Riddle's ruined blue dress in rainbow assortments. And he _felt_ the world, and heard it. A gentle breeze that smelled of vanilla, or something close to it, and there was music drifting upon the wind, and the Doctor knew somehow that such a song was coming from the trees as their leaves rustled. It was all so beautiful. Her world, whatever it was, wherever it was, was magnificent. Just as magnificent as his home world had been.

And then the breeze died. The song ceased. The air turned stale.

With a tremendous crack, the sky turned dark and opened into a great schism, a black cavern darker than night. Riddle whimpered.

"Stay with me. It's just a dream; it can't hurt you," the Doctor reminded her gently, desperate for her to keep her mind open to him.

The fissure grew wider, swallowing the violet sky until Riddle's world fell into an impossible night, blacker than any dark on any planet the Doctor had ever known. Her world had been stolen, taken into the maw of the void and devoured.

And that's when the screaming started. Terrible sounds of unfathomable agony; the screams of the dying. The Doctor felt the crippling fear that Riddle felt; a race that was completely honest, he realized. A race that couldn't know true evil or true pain because there was no way to achieve deceit; no true way to hide the desire to hurt. Every emotion on display. A race that, when confronted with such pain or such evil would be overwhelmed by their fear of the unknown.

Faint and brief shimmers of reflection dotted the sky, but it was too dark to make out what was flying over the heads of every person on the ground of Riddle's world. And then the sky was lit up by bright blue concentrated beams of light, and the Doctor watched in horror as, when the lasers hit any living thing, their skeletal structures were displayed for just a moment before they crumpled to the ground, their lives stolen from them in the blink of an eye.

"No," he muttered, his face screwing up in concentration to keep ahold of Riddle's memories. Her fear was overpowering; it was making him lose his grip. "It can't be…"

Such weaponry was all too familiar to him. But it was impossible. It had to be impossible.

And that's when the voices rose, those terrible mechanic voices void of all emotion; the voices of creatures bred for murder.

"_Exterminate_! Kill all the—!"

Riddle screamed and the Doctor found himself hurled from her mind so abruptly and so forcefully that he was physically affected, jolting backwards as Riddle curled into a ball and began sobbing into her hands. "The sky was eaten," she wailed. Her hair was changing colors rapidly, from blue to brown to black and gray and all over again. "The monsters came. Made of metal. Didn't stop to listen. They killed us all on sight. Everyone. And… and…" she hiccupped and broke down entirely. "I don't remember anything else. Just that… more than anything else, I wanted to be safe… I _needed_ to be safe."

There was more. There had to be more. The way she had gotten so injured still remained a mystery, but for now they had made an enormous breakthrough. "Daleks," he spat in disgust. "That's what destroyed your world. A race with one sole purpose: to kill everything not Dalek."

Riddle's body gave a tremendous shudder. "So scared… it was all I could think about. I'd never been scared like that before."

"I know you hadn't," the Doctor said, because it was true. In her head, he had felt her fear. Even now, it still sat in his stomach like a knot. Slowly so as not to alarm her, he wrapped his arm around her again and held her close, the way he had been before he'd asked her to relive her nightmare with him. "I know."

"But why?" she whispered. "Why do they kill? Why would anyone?"

The Doctor sighed and ran his fingers through her hair a few times. "It's all they know."

Riddle sniffled and shut her eyes, slowly getting herself under control. Her hair had ceased its rapid changing of colors and had finally rested on black, interrupted by white streaks. The Doctor thought surely those colors couldn't exist together – after all, one meant fear and the other peace – but the longer he held her, the wider the streaks of white grew until all that remained of the black was a single lock hanging over Riddle's eyes. He was beginning to understand how such exhibitions of emotion worked. Whatever she was feeling was displayed, and though she had been afraid, she was also content with the comfort. The stronger the emotion, the more its color showed.

"You should get some sleep," the Doctor said quietly. "What little you got couldn't have been very restful."

"I can't sleep. I'll see those… Daleks again," she mumbled, shuddering to remember and hesitating briefly before using the foreign name.

"I can make sure the nightmares stay away."

She looked up at him skeptically. "How?"

"Close your eyes," the Doctor commanded, and was shocked when she obeyed. She had been so obstinate up until then. He pressed his fingers to her temples again. "If this is going to work, you have to let me in."

She must have decided he was trustworthy, because the wall barricading him from her thoughts slowly dissolved.

"Imagine everything that makes you scared, or unhappy, and close the door. I can lock it." He watched images of a black sky, of blood, and of Daleks float by to be captured behind a door she created in her mind. He felt fear and pain briefly before the emotions disappeared behind the door with her nightmares. "Can you give me the key?" he requested. It appeared in his hand after a few moments, and he stuck it in the lock and turned it, hearing the satisfying click before it dissolved. "There," he said, pulling his hands away from Riddle's face and opening his eyes. He found her violet eyes staring into his and grinned after recovering from the initial shock. "Do you feel better?"

She didn't need to answer for him to see that she did; the black strip in her hair had been replaced by a vibrant yellow. But she nodded and replied feebly, "Yes."

"All right, then. Goodnight, Riddle… again." He stood and made to leave, but one of her small hands darted out and caught the end of his jacket. "Don't go!" she exclaimed quite suddenly, her voice laced with panic. The Doctor turned to find her staring at him with wide eyes, her bottom lip quivering and her hair streaked with blue.

"What is it?"

"I… I don't want to be alone," she admitted, blushing. Her hair, forever a spectacle, gained a lock of bubble gum pink. Lowering her eyes to her lap, she mumbled, "You don't have to stay a long time… just until I fall asleep. Please?"

The Doctor thought fleetingly of his zigzag plotter before deciding it could wait just a little longer. He reseated himself on the edge of her bed. "Well, if you're going to sleep, you should probably lay down," he pointed out. She smiled and did as he said, shutting her eyes. The blue and pink faded from her hair, leaving only the white and yellow.

The Doctor reached out his hand and ran his fingers once more through that wild, perplexing hair of hers. She was so very like a child. Surely she was younger than Rose had been. On a whim, he asked, "How old are you, Riddle?"

She yawned. He could tell she was falling into sleep already. "Ninety-eight," she mumbled, and the Doctor didn't have time to reply with his exclamations of shock before her breathing evened out, informing him she had fallen asleep at last.

In spite of her blessing to leave once she was asleep, the Doctor remained, staring at Riddle with a look of frustrated confusion. Two hearts. An unnaturally long lifespan. He wondered if she could regenerate too, though he wasn't going to test any theories. She was so very Time Lord, and yet wasn't.

What was this girl, how had she gotten onto his ship, and most importantly, how did he restore her memory so he could finally have all his answers?

* * *

All right! Done! Long chapter, too. Hope you liked it enough to review!

Also, (mumbles) I'm starting to run out of ideas. (Normal voice) I'd appreciate ideas you may have? They might help me with plotline glitches I'm currently having.

Also, I propose a vote, because at this point it could go either way. The Doctor and Riddle: do you guys want to see them get involved romantically, or are you content to see them as just friends, albeit rather close ones? I've got ideas for both and I haven't really picked one over the other yet. Keep in mind both options dictate different endings to this story.

And one more thing: Please come back for Chapter three! See you next time, my dears!


	3. Chapter 3

Sorry for the wait! I swear, I intended to get this out way sooner, but I had a really hectic past couple of weeks (we're talking heading games for 100 kids at an all-day summer camp plus extra shifts at work, and I'll admit, getting kind of hooked on _Supernatural_). I sat down last night with the intention to write… and somehow ended up watching David Tennant and Catherine Tate in Shakespeare's _Much Ado about Nothing_. Since you're reading this, I should hope you all know how it is with David Tennant… when he's onscreen, you watch him. When he's with Catherine Tate… it's absolutely hilarious! You haven't seen funny until you've seen him in a Superman shirt, grinning like an idiot at Catherine Tate whilst covered in white paint as she glares daggers at him! So, go find that performance and watch it, and before you do, I hope you enjoy Riddle's adventures with the Doctor in Chapter Three!

Disclaimer: Until some marvelous space-time crack warps everything in our reality to my favor, I do not own _Doctor Who_.

Chapter Three: The Usual Sort of Thing

Riddle was, for the most part, very easy to live with. She liked to ask questions, which suited the Doctor just fine as he enjoyed answering questions. She spent much of her time in the kitchen, attempting recipes she found in books from the library to keep herself occupied. She took great pride in her creations, and the Doctor had to admit that she had a real knack for cooking – she was already much better than he was, and he'd had almost nine and a half centuries to learn.

She often parked herself in the captain's seat in the console room while the Doctor worked, watching him fiddle with control panels or thumbing through novels. He hoped to introduce her to Agatha Christie soon enough.

She was very stubborn, and very strong. When she wasn't having nightmares, that was.

Her subconscious was much stronger than he had expected, and the nightmares returned to her every night. And just like the first time she'd had a nightmare, he'd sat by her and probed her mind until her dream was available for his viewing, but thus far all she had seen was the same image; Daleks raiding her enchanting home planet, always cutting infuriatingly short just before the Daleks shouted the name of her people.

She had been with him for a week (or enough hours to constitute a week in human time; concepts such as days and months were so difficult to map in a time machine) and suffered the memory every night. The Doctor had gotten into the habit of asking the TARDIS to please keep Riddle's bedroom close to the console room after the girl retired so he could get to her swiftly when the screaming began. Because it always began. Shrieks of agony and unimaginable grief would resound through the halls, and at the first pitch the Doctor would drop what he was doing and race to the girl's side, always hopeful for new images, new knowledge, some link to Riddle's mystery of a past.

He got what he wanted at long last on her eighth day with him.

He'd been staring in irritation at a bit of wire that wouldn't quite fit back into the panel that connected one of his many monitors to the GPS (Galaxian Positioning System) and fleetingly regretting throwing the TARDIS manual out so he could figure out what he had done wrong this time when he heard the first cadence of a wail. While he would have normally sprinted to Riddle's bedroom, this time he paused. A wail was uncharacteristic; a wail was new. She never wailed. Screaming and shrieking, yes, in abundance; but never a wail. Which made him think that perhaps… she was seeing something new. And should he interrupt her and risk losing more precious information when all they had to go on were her nightmares?

He'd check on her before waking her, If she looked like she could endure just a while longer, he'd let her be until she was truly unable to handle any more.

He slipped into her bedroom as quietly as he could, but it became very apparent to him at once that she could endure no more.

She was not screaming, or shrieking. But her entire frame shook on her mattress, her blankets were in a heap on the floor from her violent thrashing, and her hair was not only black, but orange and blue and brown as well, rapidly changing until her head became a muddled blur of instantaneous flashes of color. She was whimpering and wailing, her mouth constantly moving like she was pleading in a silent and unknown language. Her hands were clawing at her arms and her forehead and her chest, which rose and fell too rapidly to be natural. She was hyperventilating.

"Riddle! Riddle, wake up, come on," the Doctor began calling out urgently, sitting on her bed and gripping her wrists firmly, trying to draw them away from herself. There were streaks of blood where she had broken the skin on her shoulders and on her face. "You're safe, remember? Open your eyes. You're in the TARDIS and nothing is going to hurt you. You know that don't you? Riddle, come on! Wake up!"

And she gasped in a breath so sudden and so violent that even the Doctor jolted as she hurled herself up into a sitting position, briefly fighting against the Doctor before reality began to take root in her fear-hazy thoughts and she burst into tears, shaking her head repeatedly. "Please, not tonight, don't make me go through that again!" she begged, trying to push herself away from the Doctor, but he held her steady and upright.

She fought against him every night so she didn't have to relive her nightmares with him, but the Doctor was adamant about finding out everything that he could about her and with a single plea had always managed to get her consent.

Tonight was different.

"Riddle, work with me. It's just a couple minutes more. I have to know."

"Not right now, please not right now," she sobbed, curling her knees into her chest. "I can't do that again!"

"I know you're scared—"

"You don't know!" she argued furiously, struggling to pull her wrists from his grasp. When that didn't work, she tried hitting him. With her small fists and weak limbs tight in the Doctor's grasp, it didn't hurt at all, but it did shock him a bit; she had never tried to hit him before. "You have no idea how I feel! Going through… through that…"

"Help me understand, Riddle. Let me in," the Doctor begged, afraid to let go of her hands until he was certain she wouldn't scurry off the minute he did. "I want to help. Really, I do. And I'm sorry I have to make you go through your nightmares more than once. I am. I'm so, so sorry. But this is the only way I can help you. You've got to trust me, and let me in."

Riddle let out a strangled sound that sounded like a final plea before she shut her eyes and nodded, burying her face in her hands but leaving the Doctor access to her temples as he pressed his fingers against them and delved into her subconscious alongside her.

Her nightmare was horribly vivid. He was seeing her world as she had seen it when experiencing the attack, racing past buildings with reflective glass surfaces in too many colors to comprehend. He could hear her harsh breaths as she ran and the pounding of her two hearts in his ears. He could feel her fear, so overpowering that it almost made his limbs unable to function. She was turning corners at random with no coherent thought other than that she had to get away from the metal monsters (her mind had no word for them at the time), whatever they were.

A woman ran past, and the Doctor watched the world stop moving. Something about that woman had made Riddle stop. She knew her; the Doctor could feel that whoever the woman was, Riddle had once been close to her; he could feel the familiarity Riddle experienced seeing the woman as she ran past. Riddle had turned to call the woman's name, but she hadn't ever gotten it out.

No; she had been too horrified by the sight of her friend shot by a green ray of light coming from the metal spire protruding from one of the monsters' cylindrical body. She had heard her friend scream in agony and watched her lifeless body crumple to the ground. The Doctor felt both his hearts twist in a way he hadn't felt since losing Donna (and that had been some months ago) and then felt his stomach lurch. Riddle was screaming in her nightmare, but she hadn't uttered that same sound in her reality. It was a strangled cry the likes of which the Doctor had never heard before, a cry that made him shudder and turn cold.

Riddle had finally gotten the good sense to run, but much slower and sloppier. The world was blurring through her tears and as she made turns at random in desperation, a sound made her stop. A tremendous crack that had come from right above her head, and she looked up just in time to see a massive glass wall, a piece of one of the magnificent buildings her world had been filled with, descending at a rapid pace upon her. And she had been crushed.

The Doctor pulled his hands away from Riddle's temples with a jolt; a very abrupt and almost electric pulse had shot through his fingertips. He wasn't sure if that signified the moment he'd woken her up or if that was yet another of her extraordinary defense mechanisms. Perhaps that had been the moment she'd somehow appeared in his TARDIS. A transport, maybe. Some form of teleportation. Oh, he wanted answers!

The girl who had struggled against him with such vigor was gone, replaced by a trembling mass of limbs and tears and tangled blue and orange hair, and those same small fists that had tried hitting him in desperation to pull away were now clutching at his jacket, seeking comfort and reassurance. The Doctor wrapped his arms around a trembling and sobbing Riddle, his hearts twisting to know he had just forced her to relive such trauma. "You were crushed beneath a building," he stated quietly, almost needing to hear the words aloud to truly believe it.

He'd been hurt before, plenty of times; he was no stranger to physical pain. But this girl… that was the first time she'd experienced agony, both emotional and physical, and he had seen what it had done to her firsthand. Sure, she was strong and stubborn, but the trauma of that moment, even if she couldn't remember it all clearly, had left terrible scars, both invisible and tangible, making that obstinate and clever girl into this; a terrified and lonely child with a desperate need to fill the emptiness with reassurance. Because how else could she go on? She knew she had lost everything, but she couldn't remember what _everything_ was, why she had lost it, or even how. It would scare anyone out of their wits; in fact, it would drive most to insanity.

"I'm sorry," the Doctor apologized once more to her, the guilt still assaulting him in waves that came with each of her muffled cries. He bit the inside of his cheek in thought (as his hands were too preoccupied with rubbing Riddle's back and combing through her black and blue hair for adopting his typical thoughtful habits of earlobe tugging and hair ruffling) and came to a solution not entirely selfless, as he wanted it very dearly, but one that would help Riddle nonetheless. He wanted another adventure. He wanted Earth again. He missed that small blue planet. "Tell you what," he said, gently holding Riddle away from him and smiling at her tearful expression to try to calm her enough to listen to his proposition. "What you need are some good memories to cancel out those nasty ones. And I've got just the place."

A strip of her hair turned orange, which the Doctor interpreted as curiosity rather than confusion, and she sniffled and wiped at her eyes, hiccupping slightly before she inquired, "Where?"

Knowing she was recovering from her nightmare at last, the Doctor's smile transformed into a full-blown grin and he said, "How would you like to see a planet with blue skies?"

To his shock, she snorted with amusement. "You're joking," she said bluntly, the corners of her lips twitching. "Blue skies? That's impossible."

"Oh, but it's not. I can show you one of the most beautiful planets in the universe. As a matter of fact, I can show you almost all of the most beautiful planets in the universe. I did mention this is my spaceship, didn't I? But it's rather special – it can go anywhere in the blink of an eye. No pesky six year journeys or nonsense like that, oh no. We Time Lords travel in style."

"Time Lord," Riddle repeated, inclining her head slightly to the right inquisitively. Another lock of her hair turned orange. The Doctor had got to figure out what she was, how she was doing that; it was driving him half-mad. She considered the unfamiliar term for a few moments and asked, "You're a Time Lord? What does that mean?"

"Well… I suppose you might say we control the laws of time and space and are some of the most incredible beings to ever roam the galaxies, or at least we were, but where's the fun in talking about that? I know all of that. You know what I've never seen? The ocean on Earth from America. Let's go there, see that. Doesn't that sound like fun?"

He said this all rather quickly, hoping to avoid further inquiry. Much to his relief, Riddle asked no more questions. "All right," she agreed, though she clearly had no idea what he was talking about. "This is the planet with the blue skies?"

"That's the one! And you, Little Miss Riddle, will never doubt me again. Now! Get dressed in something fit for a day at a beach and out to the console room. I can have us there in seconds."

* * *

Riddle had a slightly difficult time with clothes, and the Doctor deduced she didn't quite understand what a beach was, or its implications. She came back to the console room wearing jeans and a black t-shirt, and the Doctor, somewhat amused, shook his head and led her to the TARDIS's wardrobe, where the old girl was clever enough to grant Riddle access to only swimwear, shorts, and tank tops. The Doctor went back to the console room and waited for her return again, imagining ways she could possibly get the clothes offered to her wrong, but she had no difficulties the second time around and came back wearing shorts and a tank top over a swimsuit, her bright yellow hair interrupted only by a strip of vibrant pink.

The Doctor stopped and stared at her in contemplation. She stared back. "What?"

"We need to do something about your hair."

Her hands flew involuntarily to the rapidly color-changing locks, orange now added to the colorful array. "What's wrong with it?"

The Doctor couldn't help but chuckle. Once again, women and their concern for their hair… "Nothing's wrong with it, exactly, but on Earth hair color doesn't change. It stays put. Sure, the odd person goes dying their hair some crazy color, but none of that is nearly as impressive as what yours does."

"Oh." She nodded in understanding, and then pursed her lips. "What do we do, then? I can't make it stop. Wait – are my nails all right?" She held up her hands, displaying her color-changing fingernails.

"Those should be fine. They aren't nearly as noticeable. Let's see…" The Doctor thought about it for a few moments, almost stumped. She couldn't wear a wig if she was going to the ocean (because who in their right mind passes up the chance to run into the sea the first time they see it?) and she would never go for dying her hair, even temporarily. She was very proud of her color changing hair. Sometimes he swore she was mocking him for having hair that stayed one color all the time.

What to do, what to—? "Of course!" The Doctor yelped quite suddenly, giving Riddle a jolt from his abrupt exclamation. "Oh, I'm thick! Why didn't I think of this immediately?!"

He clambered to the loose floor panel where he kept stray odds and ends he collected in his adventures and pulled out a simple silver chain with a large glass pendant on the end shaped like a heart. "Here we go!" he said in satisfaction, replacing the few items he'd had to remove from the space before he'd found what he'd been looking for (the crystal ball in which the Carrionites were strapped, a few screws from a cyberman, a deprogrammed Silurian gun, a wilted stick of celery) and replaced the panel.

He held the chain and pendant up for Riddle's regard. "This is called a perception filter. It makes others see what we want them to see. Unless of course, they don't want to see you how you want to be seen. Tricky bit of psychology attached. This particular trinket was given to me by a Pluvian duchess after saving her brother from execution by proving their uncle had created a body double of the duke to kill the prince…" he trailed off, realizing Riddle was not following his poorly spoken story and was instead staring in a transfixed sort of wonder at the crystal pendant. "Anyway, there's quite a bit of psychic nanotechnology in this that can bend a person's perception of you into a normal, non-changing haired human. Anyone who sees you shouldn't be able to see through to your actual hair… colors. Just let me adjust this a bit…" He pointed his screwdriver at the chain for a few seconds to program it and then placed it into Riddle's awaiting hands. Her hair turned a magnificent yellow, almost like spun gold.

"There you go. Put it on; let's see how it works," the Doctor ordered, and she grinned and complied at once, clasping it around her neck. The Doctor concentrated on allowing his focus to be altered just enough to see the result. She looked like herself, except her hair was a deep, and more importantly, stagnant, mahogany. He blinked, and the color was gone, replaced by the vibrant yellow. "Did it work?" she asked, although she didn't sound as though she cared too much if it had. She was far more enthralled by the pendant. Typical females. Jewelry always whipped them into quite the mood (something the Doctor had learned from his time spent with Donna).

"It works, all right. Just don't take it off," the Doctor added, although from the way Riddle had looked ever since he pulled it out for her to see, he didn't doubt that she'd raise hell if he ever asked for her to give it back. "Now that we've gotten that taken care of, let's see… how about Georgia? 2015 or so ought to do it." He looked at Riddle for confirmation, even though he knew the word would be completely foreign to her. She seemed to realize this, and nodded her assent. "Cumberland Island, here we come!" The Doctor grinned, rotating a few knobs and pulling a few levers. "Allons-y!"

Riddle was thrown backwards as the TARDIS jerked about, spiraling through the vortex towards their destination. She yelped and wildly flung her arms out to clutch onto the railing near the door, hanging on for dear life as her hair changed from yellow to black and orange. "Are we crashing?!" she yelled over the TARDIS's signature noise (a noise the Doctor absolutely adored), squealing when they jerked about again and then jolted to a halt.

The Doctor, who had been clinging to his usual rod attached to the central console, released it and went to the poor confused girl. "Sorry about that; should have warned you. Flying is always a bit of a roller coaster. In the future just grab onto something and don't let go until we've stopped. Usually the allons-y means we're on our way."

"Now you tell me," she grumbled, getting to her feet and looking towards the door. "What does that mean, anyway?"

"Let's go. It's French." When she looked at him in confusion, he added, "An Earth language. Well, go on, then! Go see your blue sky."

Riddle's lips turned immediately up into an almost Cheshire-like grin and she faced the door, fingers trembling slightly as they reached for the knob. She turned to look back at the Doctor for a brief moment before she laughed and yelled out, "Allons-y!" before leaping out the door.

The Doctor ran a hand through his hair, partly in amusement and partly in fatigue. He was going to have a hard time keeping up with this girl. Hard to believe she was… what had she said? Ninety-eight years old. She acted almost like Rose used to, only slightly more childish. He had no doubt she'd fling herself head first into the trouble that always seemed to find him and more than likely cause some mischief herself.

"Are you coming or not?! This is incredible!" he heard her shriek of delight from outside, and with a smile, a small sigh, and an amused shake of his head, the Doctor climbed out of the TARDIS after her.

Riddle was standing some fifteen feet from the blue police box (which was partially concealed behind a cluster of trees), staring in awe at the sky. "It's so beautiful," she said in disbelief after glancing at the Doctor briefly. "I thought you had to be joking, but this… this is amazing. Blue skies! Who could have imagined?!"

The Doctor remembered his own amazement the very first time he'd seen Earth's blue skies. Riddle was even more impressed than he had been. "It's quite something, isn't it?"

"Earth," Riddle said the name with such reverence. The Doctor had no doubt he'd converted her to his level of love for the planet already. "Georgia. Is that a… city?"

"Nope. Georgia is a state in the US, which is a country, which is inside a continent," the Doctor explained briefly, and Riddle looked at him with wide eyes, trying to process so many new words at once. A strip of her hair turned that familiar shade of orange that signified confusion. "I'll explain later," the Doctor vowed, and though she nodded she still looked a little put out after being presented with the unknown. Hoping to distract her, the Doctor gestured towards the sea and asked, "Have you even noticed the ocean?"

Riddle allowed herself a few more moments of gazing upward before she reluctantly turned her attention towards the sea. She let out an audible gasp and her mouth dropped open in an almost comical O. That was the look of someone who had just been mesmerized by what had been set before them.

"Incredible, isn't it?" The Doctor asked her, closing the distance between them and staring at the ocean by her side. "All that vast, unexplored space. Entire worlds miles and miles down, and nobody knows what it looks like. They call space the final frontier here on Earth; I rather think they should focus their attention a bit closer to home before tackling the universe."

"Do you know what's down there?" Riddle asked. "Time machine and all. Surely the people of this planet explore it eventually."

"Humans," the Doctor supplied for her, and she took mental note before he went on to explain, "You're right, of course. I think they finally complete a map of the ocean floor at around the year /Delta.4."

Riddle evidently couldn't comprehend the strange year he'd given her and didn't try to. "What's down there?"

"Oh, lots of things. Most of them unpleasant, and let's leave it at that," the Doctor requested, watching as horror flickered briefly in Riddle's eyes and a small lock of her hair shifted from yellow to black. "Nothing that would come up to the surface," he reassured her at once, and she relaxed a bit. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and began steering her further away from the TARDIS, where he could see humans scattered across the beach a few hundred feet away. "Come on. Let's get you fully initiated to Earth and its people."

"Humans," Riddle said, reminding herself of the word. "Can I talk to them? I don't think I speak human."

"Oh, no need to worry about that. Gift of the TARDIS, you see. Translates everything for you. You can talk to anyone on any world and completely understand them, and they'll completely understand you."

"So what language am I speaking now?"

The Doctor paused. He hadn't thought of that before. "That is an excellent question," he decided, a little taken aback by his thoughtlessness. A language! His brain was beginning to lose its keen edge. A language could give him some very specific clues as to where she'd come from. "And that question will be addressed once we're back on the TARDIS. But for now, a little mingling."

"Allons-y." Riddle mumbled, and the Doctor gave her a playful nudge.

"Don't go stealing my catchphrase there, kid."

She was too easy to get riled up. "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize you could have a claim to a couple of words," Riddle griped, though good-naturedly.

The Doctor grinned as he looked down at her. Riddle could very possibly be his biggest adventure yet.

* * *

Riddle had taken quite happily to the ocean (although she had discovered incredibly quickly that seawater was definitely not for drinking) and the Doctor stood on the beach, sure to keep an eye on her as he looked around. This beach wasn't incredibly crowded. It was an excellent place for Riddle's first adventure.

"Well, there's a sight. You don't often see people coming to a beach wearing a suit," the Doctor heard a friendly voice comment from behind, and he turned to greet the speaker. It was an older gentleman wearing a t-shirt and swim trunks, clutching an umbrella beneath one arm.

"Yeah, not one much for swimming," the Doctor replied smoothly, offering the man a smile. "I much prefer the view."

"Your girlfriend seems to think quite the opposite," the man chuckled, nodding towards Riddle. The Doctor didn't bother to correct him. Humans couldn't quite grasp the complicated relationships he had with his companions. "You two here on vacation?"

"Oh, yeah. Thought a change of scenery could help. She's been working through some… stuff," the Doctor finished rather lamely, not sure how else to describe it.

"Well, you're lucky you got into this beach. They're only allowing about 300 people in here a day, you know. And everyone's gunning to get to this place, what with all that mermaid hype going around."

"Mermaid?" The Doctor repeated, his curiosity peaking. "What do you—?"

"Hey!" Riddle called, evidently having abandoned the ocean to see who had caught the Doctor's attention. She ran up to his side with an enormous grin on her face. "What's going on?"

"Oh, I was just telling your boyfriend here about that mermaid people keep spotting here," the man offered. Riddle didn't bat an eyelash at the term "boyfriend," obviously having no idea of its implications.

"What's a mermaid?" she asked outright, and the Doctor was somewhat mortified and amused all at once. That was a very un-human question.

The man, thankfully, glossed over her question like he thought she'd asked "what mermaid?" instead. "A couple of kids caught it on video a few weeks back on one of those fancy smart phones. Long tail, shiny black hair, real fairy tale stuff. Me and the wife are almost certain it's a hoax, but the entire country went nuts about it. And ever since then, people are always claiming to have seen it, or others like it. This place couldn't ask for better publicity, let me tell you."

"Right… Any place I could watch that video?" the Doctor asked, flashing Riddle a look that said "I'll explain later" as she opened her mouth to ask another question, which would almost certainly be along the lines of "What's a video?"

"Sure. The resort's got wi-fi, or you could just go home and get on the internet, find it real easy. Are you two staying at the resort?"

"Checked in this morning," the Doctor grinned. Riddle looked confused, of course, but that was to be expected. They'd be checked in soon enough. Sure, they could go back to the TARDIS and connect to Earth's world wide web to find the video, but it would be much better to ask the other guests what they thought of it, and better yet, whether or not they'd seen it. "Actually, we should probably be heading back up there. Getting kind of late," the Doctor said, beginning to usher Riddle in the direction the old man had been indicating. "Thanks a lot."

"No trouble," the man smiled, offering the pair a wave before heading on his way.

"I have so many questions for you right now," Riddle said at once.

"Later. Once we've got a room."

"A room where? Aren't we going back to the TARDIS?"

"Not just yet. You see, hundreds of years of searching the ocean floor and the humans never once found any sort of mer-civilization beneath the surface. So the question is, what sort of creatures are masquerading as merfolk and how do we remedy the situation?"

Riddle looked ready to burst, she was so bamboozled. "That didn't help at all."

"Once again, I'll explain later."

"This is infuriating," she grumbled, but asked no questions as the Doctor led her through the doors of the beach resort the man had spoken of and marched up to the reception desk. "Hi. Hello. Would you happen to have any vacant rooms?"

The girl behind the desk scanned a few pages of her registry half-heartedly, then paused. "Huh. Looks like we had a cancellation." She closed the book and looked up at the Doctor. "It's your lucky day, Sir. We have one room. Normally there's a waiting list of a couple weeks, but lately what with all this mermaid stuff going on—"

"What do you think of all that, then?"

"Me? Honestly, I think it's a publicity stunt organized by the managers. We've never been so busy. Anyway, name?"

"John Smith."

"How many nights? I can only guarantee three."

"Three's perfect, thanks," the Doctor grinned, sliding a credit card across the counter. He'd taken the precaution some years before, acquiring a credit card in the name of his chosen alias, John Smith, and modifying it a bit with the screwdriver to give him unlimited credit. It was much more convenient than sonicking an ATM for cash, that was for sure. The girl ran the card without any problems and handed it back to him with a room key. "Enjoy your stay."

"Counting on it. Come on, Riddle," the Doctor beckoned her, and she bounded after him.

* * *

"It makes no sense," the Doctor said in disbelief, leaning back in his chair and watching the computer screen in shock. "The footage hasn't been tampered with at all!"

"Let me see," Riddle requested, climbing off the bed and going to stand behind him. The Doctor clicked the replay button and let Riddle see the perplexing footage. There she was, plain as daylight. A mermaid, sitting on a rock several yards out, picking starfish out of her dripping black hair with her back to the camera. She tensed and whirled around, obviously startled by the sight of whoever was holding the camera, and slid off the rock with one powerful shove of muscular arms. Moments later, a sparkling blue tail rose up out of the water and then disappeared in a flash. The boys operating the camera phone began letting out several exclamations off screen and the video stopped.

"That's a video?" Riddle asked before anything else, clearly delighted by the moving pictures.

"Yep."

"And… that girl with the tail… that's wrong?"

"More than wrong. Merfolk simply don't exist! Humans did not evolve for survival in water, it's just that simple!" the Doctor exclaimed, removing his glasses and holding his head. "And even if they had, they certainly wouldn't look like that! For one, they wouldn't have hair, and they'd need enormous eyes… this makes no sense. Absolutely none."

Riddle made a noise of understanding before she returned to the bed, sprawling out on it as she reached for the notebook and pen on the bedside table. "Does this sort of thing happen to you a lot? Like, mysteries everywhere you go?"

"More often than not," the Doctor sighed, rising from his chair and going over to the Riddle's side. The room was not one of the hotel's larger ones, and had only the one bed. "Scoot over," he said, and Riddle did. He sat down and took the notebook from her. "So, states and countries and continents, yeah? It goes something like this…"

Riddle sat up and watched as he drew a diagram on the open page, listening intently to every explanation. It was very easy to know when he needed to slow down because segments of her hair would go orange, but it didn't happen nearly as often as he had thought it would. Once she had a firm grasp on geology, he started on mermaid mythology, and as she listened the Doctor thought about how nice it was to have someone by his side once more. And he couldn't imagine anyone better than Riddle.

* * *

That's that chapter done! I was going to cut it off after the bit with the old man, but then I thought, "Nah, I'll keep going." I'm going to be gone for a couple of weeks in the mountains without any computer access, internet access, or cell service, so I'll try my hand at writing in notebooks again, mapping out my next chapter. In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Oh, and please review. I love your reviews. I need your reviews. They are my oxygen.

Phantom, out!


	4. Chapter 4

Hello, all! I'm back with Chapter four! I had a hilarious and fantastic time in the mountains: adventures include wrestling a calf into submission, climbing a fifty foot rock wall in twenty minutes (it may not sound so impressive to some of you, but my last record was twice that time, so I was pretty darn happy!), repelling down said rock wall and being hit by campers with sticks as though I were a piñata (by order of my boss), and partaking in an all-out war that ended in most of the campers and several counselors, myself included, getting thrown in the stock tank for the horses. Oh, and tons of horseback riding (my favorite)! But now I'm back and am writing once more!

And now, dear readers, I write to you from my dorm room at college where I am studying pre-med, so if future updates are few and far between I do apologize.

Disclaimer: Doctor Who does not belong to me… but God knows the man belongs with me ;) !

* * *

"A Monstrous Encounter"

Riddle was up early the next morning after her usual six hours of sleep, yellow and white hair mussed and eyes groggy. She looked around in confusion for a moment, one strip of hair turning bright orange, before she processed where she was, remembering the night before and realizing she was not in unfamiliar territory but exactly where she was supposed to be. The orange returned to white when she saw the Doctor, his eyes framed by glasses, sitting at the computer, clicking through the supposed eyewitness accounts of the mermaid. His eyes had been glued to the screen for the past hour, but when he heard Riddle shifting her position as she awoke, rustling the bed sheets with her motions, he looked away from the monitor and at his new companion. He saw her sleep riddled expression and her hair, prominently displaying her peace and contentment, and grinned. "Good morning."

The corners of her lips twitched as she rubbed the lingering sleep out of her eyes. "Morning."

"Sleep well?"

She considered his question, looking pleasantly surprised as she thought upon her slumber. "Yes… I did, actually."

That was no surprise to him, as he was primarily responsible for her peaceful sleep. He'd gotten in his typical three hours and awoken to Riddle's tearful whimpering as her usual nightmares prepared to replay, her hair slowly turning from white to black as though someone had poured a cup of ink onto her head and it was spreading. Partially because her screams would wake everyone on the floor of the hotel up but primarily because he hated to see her suffer when it was within his power to prevent it, he'd sought her temples with his hands, pressing his fingertips against them, and proceeded cautiously into her subconscious. He'd tiptoed around any awareness she may have had to ensure he would not be thrust unceremoniously from her mind, or even worse, jumpstart her terrible dreams.

Sorting through her dreams had been simple enough, as he was only interested in that which he had already seen (although he was dismayed to find so few happy thoughts among them). Once he'd located those memories which always set Riddle to screaming in her sleep, he created a maze and a series of doors, burying them in a labyrinth inside her subconscious. He left them untouched in her awareness, however – he wouldn't want to be responsible for locking the only memories she had of her home planet away from her, as horrific as they may be. He ensured she could access them as surface memory only. He'd locked each door behind him before pulling back into his own head, satisfied with his handiwork.

Riddle's hair was all white and yellow when he next looked, and there was a smile teasing at her lips. Too curious to restrain himself, he'd delved back into her head again to see what dreams now made her so happy. He'd seen a few brief flashes of himself, to his great surprise, before he realized he'd been too careless. Before he could shrink back into the unobserved corners of her mind, she'd thrust him out, although the defense must have been entirely unconscious, as her countenance in sleep had not changed. He'd been appalled by the fact that he was the cause for her good dreams at first, before he realized he was all the good she knew since her amnesia had taken root.

"Glad to hear it," the Doctor said pleasantly, pulling his glasses off and rubbing his eyes with his palms. "This mermaid business is beginning to drive me mad," he sighed. He stood and paced about the room for a moment, trying to process all the information he'd taken into his head in the last hour. Looking for a distraction, his eyes sought out Riddle, watching as she crawled out of the bed. He pointed at the chair over which a small bag had been slung. "I popped out to the TARDIS for some things. You'll find some of your clothes in there. Get dressed. We'll go to breakfast, and then we investigate."

Riddle nodded and turned her attention to the bag which he had indicated, staring skeptically at the size (about as big as your average briefcase). "That can't be big enough to hold much more than a few pens, maybe a book. How did you fit an entire set of clothes into that?"

"Bigger on the inside, of course," the Doctor said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Go on, have a look."

Riddle raised an eyebrow at him. "I don't believe that."

"No, it's true," he urged her, jerking his head towards the chair. Hadn't she noticed Time Lords were rather fond of bigger-on-the-inside-technology? But now that he thought about it, she'd only ever seen the inside of the TARDIS. He didn't think she'd even glanced at the outside, as her first venture outside his ship had been rather distracting. She'd been far too mesmerized by the blue skies to look at his blue box. It would be rather entertaining when she got back into it, then.

It was rather amusing now, actually, to watch her open the bag and see her hair go entirely yellow with a gleeful sort of amazement and then the pink highlights growing as she realized she'd scoffed at the idea too soon. The bag was several feet deep, and she practically disappeared into it, giggling, as she fished out a set of clothes and disappeared into the bathroom to get dressed.

* * *

Breakfast was quite the affair. The food was all right, and Riddle kept the Doctor quite entertained as she tried foods she'd never tasted before, her hair changing color almost with everything she tried. She loved waffles and hard-boiled eggs (not so fond of the yolks, though), and refrained herself from spitting out a bite of hash browns with a look akin to agony on her face as she forced herself to swallow. A strip of her hair even went brown.

"What are those?" she asked after taking a few large gulps of milk, pointing her fork at the fried breakfast potatoes. "Those are disgusting. What are those?"

"Aw, come on," the Doctor teased, taking a bite of the food in question from her plate. "Everybody likes hash browns!"

"Not me," she replied immediately, grimacing at the potatoes before choosing another hard-boiled egg, removing the yolk and depositing it near the three others she'd detached from previous eggs, feasting on the white bit. "These are lovely, though."

"Well, I'm glad you're having fun at the very least. Eat up! We go hunting for that mermaid once we leave here!" The Doctor grinned across the table at her.

"Excuse me, Sir?"

The Doctor looked up to see who had addressed him, and Riddle followed suit. A young man wearing jeans and a t-shirt with blood-shot eyes who looked as though he hadn't shaved in a couple of days had approached their table, clutching a stack of papers in his arms and looking desperate.

"Hello," the Doctor greeted him. "Everything all right?"

The man was shaking. "I'm really sorry for eavesdropping, but I just… I couldn't ignore it when you said you were going looking for the mermaid."

"Oh, yeah. All in good fun, isn't it?" the Doctor asked cheerfully, masking the sense of foreboding this man was setting off.

Riddle wasn't making nearly as much effort. Worry was written all over her expression and in her hair, a few strips going ink-black. "Should we not go looking for it?"

"No!" the man exclaimed, his breaths short and expression going frantic. "Whatever you do, don't go looking for that monster!"

People were looking at them now. The Doctor needed to talk to this man now, but not here. "All right, calm down," he said in the most soothing voice he could. "Riddle, you done with breakfast?"

She nodded.

"All right." The Doctor stood, indicating Riddle should get up as well. Ever obedient, she got to her feet. "Let's go outside," the Doctor suggested. "You can tell us all about it."

* * *

"They took my wife," the man said, looking up at the Doctor and Riddle from his seat on a wooden bench, his audience standing before him and listening intently. He was fighting back tears, poor bloke. From the state of his eyes, it looked as though he'd been crying himself to sleep every night for the past few days. He passed the Doctor one of the papers in his grasp with an unsteady hand. It was a missing poster, featuring a picture and a reward for any information leading to the location of the missing woman, a pretty girl with blonde hair and green eyes framed by glasses. "We only just got married a week ago," he explained, his voice trembling. "We were here on our honeymoon. It was wonderful. And then… three days ago…" his voice faltered, and he let out a sob as he began rubbing his eyes with one hand. "Sorry," he apologized thickly. "It's so hard."

"It's all right," Riddle assured him sympathetically. Her hair was blue now, displaying the sorrow she felt for this poor man. "Take your time." She paused for a moment and asked, "What's your name?"

"D-David," the man choked out, taking several deep breaths to try to calm himself.

"David," she repeated. "My name's Riddle, and this is the Doctor. He can help."

"_We_ can help," the Doctor accentuated, watching a strand of Riddle's hair go pink. "So, David. What happened three days ago?"

It took David a few short breaths before he pulled himself together enough to relay the events, and then he explained. "Laura and me, we were just out exploring the beach, looking around for somewhere _secluded_, you know," he let out a very short watery laugh before he fell back into his depression. "We found a spot. Great little place. She wanted to go swimming first and I really wasn't in the mood, so I just sat on the beach and watched her… and then… they came."

"They?" the Doctor inquired curiously. "More than one?"

"Several. Eight or nine of them. They looked human until you got to their waists. All female. Different colored tails, different colored hair. Beautiful. I didn't know what to do. They just… swam up to her. They smiled and laughed, looking at her, looking at me. But then they stopped. And then suddenly they weren't… human at all anymore. Their skin went all… grayish, practically blue, and their eyes… those terrible eyes… black and soulless… they grabbed her. They grabbed my Laura and pulled her under, and some even threw themselves on the beach, _hissing_ at me, clawing at the sand with their terrible fingers trying to reach me, and I couldn't save her. I just yelled and ran…" A sob slipped past David's quivering lips and just like that, he fell apart." I was supposed to be able to protect her…"

The Doctor was rather appalled by this man's state. He'd met men before who'd gone through tragedy and they put on brave faces and kept on with a fiercely optimistic attitude. This poor bloke though, he was wearing his very heart on his sleeve.

The Doctor liked him. Riddle seemed to harbor very similar feelings, as she sat down on the bench next to him, her hair growing a deeper blue by the second, and tentatively reached out and patted David's shoulder. "Hey," she said quietly. "It's going to be fine. We can help." She looked up at the Doctor and bit her lip. "We _can_ help, can't we?"

"Oh, yes," the Doctor nodded, running a hand through his perpetually untidy hair as his brain began to sort through every aqueous life form he'd ever met, seen from a distance, read about, or only heard mentioned in passing. There were too many. He'd need to see these creatures himself to make an accurate guess as to what they could be. "David, you sit tight and keep passing out those fliers, all right? Riddle!"

She leapt to her feet as though startled. "Yes, sir!"

Sir, the Doctor thought amusedly. Not often he was called sir by anyone, nonetheless his companions. Sometimes he used the title to introduce himself (after all, he had been knighted!) but the people he travelled with never used it unless they were kidding around. "We've got work to do," he grinned, and was satisfied to see several strands of her hair go yellow with excitement.

* * *

"Are you sure this is the best way to find these things?" Riddle asked an hour later, perched atop a rock some twenty feet from the shoreline and peering through the pair of binoculars hanging around her neck by a leather strap. "Let's just rent some of that Scooby equipment and go searching for those things ourselves."

"Scuba, Riddle, not Scooby. Scooby is an animated dog who solves mysteries," the Doctor corrected her, scanning the surface of the ocean as he looked through his own pair of binoculars. He was on the same rock as she was, though he was standing. "And I've found it best to have a mostly clear idea of what we're dealing with before we go barging in blind. If there's a way to gather information, take it. Trust me; it's better that way."

Riddle sighed and focused her attention back on the water. After a few moments, she asked, "What's a dog?"

The Doctor couldn't hold back the snort of laughter. Her hair went pink. "Sorry," he apologized. "Dogs are a popular animal companion on earth. You'll see some soon enough, trust me."

"And Scooby is a particularly enthusiastic dog?"

"Huh?"

"You said he was animated. Animals must be very intelligent on this planet if they can solve mysteries all on their own."

The Doctor had to try very, very hard not to laugh at her comment. He succeeded, but he feared he may have cracked a couple of ribs containing an amused outburst. "Um… no, it doesn't quite work like that. Scooby is a cartoon character on a television show and he works with cartoon humans who solve mysteries and…" he cut himself short when her hair went entirely orange. He'd lost her. "Oh, I'll show you later. I probably have a video of it somewhere on the TARDIS.

"Okay," Riddle shrugged. Her hair returned to mostly white with a few gray sections, displaying her boredom with their task. Granted, sitting on a rock looking at water through binoculars for a creature that only had a slight chance of showing up was not the most exciting thing to do, but it was necessary. "What do you think it could be?" she inquired after a few moments more. She wasn't fond of silence; she liked to fill the air with speech.

"A few things, actually. Some more likely than others. The Calicus, for one. Their planet is entirely water, but I've never heard of one with human form. I mean, they've got four arms and spikes growing out of their heads rather than hair. Could be the people of the Republic of Imbris on Hippurus – that's fun to say – but that doesn't quite sound like them either. They're shape shifters, so it matches what we're hunting for a bit better, but they're not fully aqueous… makes me wonder if what we're dealing with is something new."

"Is new good?"

"Exciting, for sure, but good… that's such an objective term, isn't it?"

Riddle made a noise of uncertainty. "Your reassurances are very calming, Doctor," she muttered sarcastically. A strip of her hair had gone black. She was afraid of what could be out there. And the problem was, the Doctor wasn't entirely certain she shouldn't be.

* * *

They sat on that rock a good four hours before hunger forced both of them back to the beach and to the hotel for lunch. Both asked around the dining room for people who had seen the mermaids, and Riddle called the Doctor over when she got a positive response from a little girl. By the time he'd made his way over, Riddle was already conversing with her, kneeling so she was at eye level with the child.

"I'm Riddle. What's your name?"

The girl looked back at her for a while before she seemed to deem that Riddle was trustworthy. "Emily."

"Emily. That's a pretty name. How old are you, Emily?"

"Eight and a half."

For someone who hadn't spent any time around humans before, the Doctor thought, Riddle was doing exceptionally well. "You're pretty old!" Riddle exclaimed, and Emily looked back at her proudly. "And you saw the mermaid?"

"Yup. She was so pretty. Her tail was red and she had long black hair."

"She does sound pretty. What was she doing?"

A woman raced up to Emily and Riddle with a suspicious gleam in her eyes. "Excuse me! What do you think you're doing with my daughter?"

The Doctor shushed her, listening intently to Emily's answer.

"She was swimming near the rocks a little away from the beach. I was by myself looking at rock pools and I heard her singing. So I looked and she was out in the ocean, looking at me and singing and smiling. Then she stopped singing and started asking me questions. Like my name and how old I was, and she asked me if I was a human and I said yes. She wanted me to go play with her. I was going to, but then I heard Mommy calling for me and she sounded mad, so I had to go back. I said sorry to the mermaid first, though. She looked mad, too." Emily looked sadly at Riddle and said embarrassedly, "I made the mermaid mad."

"Don't listen to her; she has such an active imagination," the woman said quickly, shaking her head. "I don't know where she comes up with it."

"No, no," the Doctor said contemplatively, his head brimming with this brand new information. A siren race. There were myths of sirens all across the globe, but he'd never ascertained the source. Maybe he was dealing with the origins of those stories. It made sense, after all. Sea dwelling creatures, half human and half monster, luring people into the water and dragging them down below the surface, never to be seen again. "It's quite all right. She's going to be an excellent story teller. The world needs good story tellers. Anyway, Riddle?"

Riddle straightened up and looked at him, an expression on her face that clearly meant _What do we do now_?

"I think we need to go looking for more information. Let's go." He pulled her away from the perplexed mother and her daughter and they left the hotel at a brisk pace, the Doctor's expression screwed up in concentration.

"Where are we going exactly?" Riddle asked, matching the Doctor's hurried pace with ease. She loved going fast. Which was quite an asset to the Doctor – a companion who loved running nearly as much as he did.

"TARDIS. She's got way more information in her storage reserves than I could ever hope to keep inside my head."

"Doctor," Riddle suddenly said, stopping short. But he didn't stop. He didn't even slow his pace.

"Keep up, Riddle, come on."

"But Doctor—"

"What is it, Riddle?"

"I _really_ think you should look at this!" Riddle said breathily, a tremor to her voice. She sounded very scared. The Doctor turned around and regarded her hair, entirely jet black, and followed her gaze, which was upon the sea.

"Well, hello," he whistled, staring intently at the mermaid, perched upon the beach with her shimmering silver tail rising and falling into the ebb and flow of the tide, watching him and Riddle through bright green eyes with a smile on her lips.

"I saw you watching for us this morning," she called, pushing her dripping yellow hair over one shoulder to reveal a bare chest. Riddle's hair gained pink locks, her cheeks turning red, and she kept her gaze firmly upon the mermaid's head. "You and your girl. The one with the interesting hair."

Riddle sucked in a harsh gasp. "How did she know that? I've still got on the perception filter!"

"Some species have a keener ability for psychic technology than others," the Doctor explained briefly, his gaze never leaving the mermaid. "So, what are you, then? You and your sisters have been giving us a fair amount of trouble."

"I'm sorry," she apologized, offering the Doctor a simpering pout. She was being very flirtatious. "Did you want us to come out and play?"

"I wouldn't mind a chat, yeah."

"So speak. I have plenty of time," the mermaid invited.

The Doctor wasted no time in asking questions. "Who are you? Why are you here?"

She scoffed. "Not so fast. You can ask me anything you like… so long as you offer me the same information that I give up. Fair deal?"

The Doctor let out a long and slow breath. "Fine. Who are you?"

She lay down on the beach and rolled over, her chin resting in her palm and her elbow digging into the sand. "My name has such little meaning here on this planet," she sighed. "No Earth language could translate it properly. I suppose the closest I can give you is that my name is similar to Caede (**Cai-aid-ay**)."

The Doctor knew enough Latin to know that the name was very similar to the ancient language's word for blood, shed in slaughter. The blood of the murdered. If that wasn't foreboding, he didn't know what was.

"Your turn," the mermaid prompted, grinning wickedly.

"I'm the Doctor," he introduced himself unenthusiastically, unnerved by Caede's curious aura. An alluring and yet repulsing atmosphere surrounded her. There was a perception filter enshrouding her true form, but it was too strong; he couldn't see through it.

"A physician," she smiled. "I think you will find we need no such practices beneath the surface. We are not as fragile as the humans."

"Wonderful. What are you?"

She laughed. "Oh, an ancient race, dear Doctor. We were thriving long before this Earth was coming together. We call ourselves the Viragoama here. Not the most appealing of names, but closest to our language's word."

Virago: Warrior.

Acroama: Singer.

The Doctor ran through the Latin in his head again and came out with those two words. Very interesting. "I'm a Time Lord."

"Time Lord," Caede repeated with interest, sounding impressed. "We heard you all perished in the war. Along with those nasty Daleks."

"…They did. I survived."

"The last of the Time Lords," Caede breathed, running her tongue over her teeth. "What an honor."

"How many of you are there?" the Doctor demanded.

Caede pouted. "No fair! I already know the answer to that question in regard to you."

"And I will be happy to answer it again. How many?!"

"You're no fun," she griped, her tail flicking irritably. "About sixty. We were so many not long ago, but the humans have been poisoning our waters. I can't tell you how many times we've had to relocate. Sad, too –Atlantis was one of our greatest achievements yet, and we had to tear it down and move on."

"What are you doing here?" the Doctor asked, visibly frustrated.

Caede rolled her eyes. "My, you're impatient. We're gathering intelligence on the humans. Why are there so many of them? We're trying to duplicate their form, you see. Walking on land. Tails are very inconvenient on this planet. All the most fascinating things are on land, and we're confined to the water. And yourself, Doctor? Why did you come to Earth?"

"My companion and I were looking for a bit of a vacation. I suppose you could say you put a bit of a damper on that." His mind was reeling. Duplicating human form? How could they do that? "What happened to your planet?"

"It boiled. Thousands of years ago. The secondary sun expanded. The planet was cooking. Our seers saw a planet with a habitat compatible with ours, and so we traveled across the stars. Oh, it took hundreds of years. We only arrived on Earth some three thousand ago, in the middle of the coldest water we'd ever known. Several died on the journey to warmer seas. We built Atlantis on the floor of the ocean, in the middle of the Atlantic, hence the name, when we stopped, and there were only some eight hundred of us. My people lived there for centuries until war broke out between us. Such a tragedy. Some wanted to make our presence to the humans known, others were adamant about remaining secretive. Over half died in that war; the side favoring our continued concealment emerged the victor. And then the humans began dumping garbage into the seas. Oil is foul. More grew sick and perished, and we left our beloved city, destroying the evidence of it. It's everywhere; the human filth. All over our oceans. We finally found a pocket of water with a fairly cleansing current not far from here and built our new abode a few years ago. We knew we needed to walk on land but had no means to assimilate. So… we started the Project."

"Project? What project?!"

"Ah, ah, ah," she scolded teasingly. "Answer the question first. What of the planet of the Time Lords, hm? Tell me how it perished. Tell me the ending of the war. We left our planet while you were still in the midst of it, you see, and I'm ever so curious."

The Doctor was reluctant. He had wanted to tell Riddle about it eventually, but not today… not like this. How could he tell her Gallifrey burned all thanks to him? How could he make her understand, right in this moment, that it was necessary? That he hadn't wanted to, but he had been forced to?

"I'm waiting," the mermaid said in a sing-song voice, her tail rising and falling back into the water.

The Doctor cast a wary glance at Riddle and replied as duplicitously as he could, "It burned. All of it. My home, the Time Lords, the Daleks… they all died. And the Last Great Time War came to an end. I was the only one who survived."

Riddle's gasp twisted his hearts and the look of horror and sympathy on her face was nearly unbearable. No… not just sympathy. Empathy. Both of them, the last of their kinds – because there was no doubt that all of Riddle's people had perished, what with the great chasm of nothing swallowing her planet and the Daleks combined.

The mermaid looked delighted. "How interesting! Such a noble race, all gone… you must have been _devastated_."

The Doctor shook his head, not as a response, but as a refusal to acknowledge her statement. "Now, tell me about this project," he demanded severely, hardened in the face of the memory of his beloved Gallifrey gone up in flames.

Caede looked thoughtful for a few moments, teasing Riddle and the Doctor with her silence, before she made a noise of consideration and decided, "Hm… no. I'm tired of playing. We've already swapped five questions and I've grown bored. Let's spice things up a bit, hm, Doctor?" Grinning a wicked, toothy smile the mermaid turned to scan Riddle with an intense gaze.

Riddle screamed quite suddenly and fell over, moaning and clawing at empty air, begging an invisible attacker to stop hurting her. Her hair was black and brown and her shrieks of agony were worse than the Doctor had ever heard them as she was tortured by whatever nightmare Caede had imagined for her.

"Riddle!" the Doctor roared, leaping to grab her, but he wasn't quick enough. Caede had transformed into the monster David had described hours earlier, her skin scaly and dark gray with a lavender sheen to it, her eyes great and bottomless black orbs reflecting pinpricks of sunlight. Her nails had elongated and turned black, resembling claws, and her teeth were like needles, thin and deadly sharp. She heaved herself just enough further onto the beach to snatch Riddle into her clutches and slithered back to the water as quick as the briefest flash of lightening, disappearing beneath the surface and coming back up several feet from the shore, Riddle's expression slack. She had gone unconscious, her hair still black and brown.

The Doctor, enraged, lifted his screwdriver as a weapon and commanded her with all the fury and danger he had in his body, "Give her back! You give her back to me RIGHT NOW!"

"Not a chance, Time Lord! This one we must have," Caede hissed, her tail whipping around her. "The one with the changing hair color. If you're so determined… come and get her."

And the monstrous mermaid was gone, leaving the Doctor alone on the beach and more furious than he had been in long time. "RIDDLE!" he screamed, an exercise in futility. She was gone, Caede was gone, and now he had no choice but to do what he had been hoping to avoid: venture below the surface in pursuit of those monsters himself.

* * *

Sorry it took so long to get this out there! I'm a biochemistry major with an English writing minor, so obviously 90% of my time is devoted to homework. I have calculus, biology, and chemistry labs tomorrow, so pray for me, wish me luck, whatever it is that you may do, and I'll get chapter 5 out as soon as I can, which will still be much later than I'd like and far too late to satisfy your curiosity, and I apologize. Just know that I AM trying!

Love you all and thanks for reading!

Cantica, Out!


End file.
